I left a toxic AF work environment recently and just want to get a couple things off my chest that happened in the 3.5 years I worked there. It's going to be a long story…so here we go.
I worked in a well known animal shelter where I live. At first I was exited to finally get a job where I could help animals get a home. As the time went on I have realized how toxic and shitty the place was by taking advantage of the shelter workers. Now this place has a wildlife center, a domestic animal center, a low cost clinic, a humane investigation unit and a barn center. The people that are on the forefront directly working with the animals and the public work extremely hard but get taken advantage of a lot. There is such a deep divide between the administration side of the shelter compared to the workers. Besides the dramatic wage gap (most of the workers only make slightly above minimum wage while administration made close to 3 figures) the treatment was also different.
Workers would get in trouble for overtime but would get a workload enough for 3+ people. Then they would get in trouble for not finishing the work. Besides the fact that the workers had to take care of the animal handling, cleaning, vaccines, behavior evaluations and more. You also have a crazy amount of paperwork to get done and management want it done by the end of the day.
Now I understand the want to push because the animal can't move forward until everything is done. After they can be placed on the adoption floor. Can't really get everyone out when there is not enough people to get things done. The turnover rate is crazy high and moving up in the company is difficult if at all. Once you were “categorized” as something management didn't really see a reason to put you anywhere else. No matter how hard you worked. But your workload would get more added on it to the point it was no longer just your job discriptions but also others. No raises though. Just annual bump or if you were able to move to a different position but that was rare. It seemed like they just took advantage of the shelter workers love for animals to guilt them to stay and be ok with the toxic work environment.
People who barley worked but we're “favorite's” of the management would get promoted even if they weren't qualified and spent a lot of the day during idk what (Seriously there were some people there that we had no clue what they did or where they were all day). Part of the staff that worked hard would get more piled on them because management knew they would take it on to help the animals. When you asked management for more people or a raise they would say there is not enough in the budget for that. Even if they added 2 other people in the administration side or made business lunches for them.
Those who were bilingual and did most of the translation for the whole shelter didn't have a stipend until 2020. We would take double the calls, double the people or just anything needing Spanish since no one else in the shelter could speak it. If they had no one they had to try and pick up words here and there and wouldn't get the entire detail of what was needed. That includes some legal things that you weren't always prepared for the situation since no one would give you context, just ask for translation. Stipend wasn't great but it was something. Btw they didn't have a translated part of the website until 2020 either and when it first went up it looks like they just put it through Google translate instead of getting a translator. A couple of us pointed it out and they got defensive at first but knew we were right since pretty much all of us that spoke Spanish said the translation was trash. At first they wanted us to “volunteer our time” on top of our work to help translate it. We would still get in trouble if we didn't finish our main crazy workload on time. A lot of us told them get a translator or be prepared to offend the Spanish community. They ended up getting a translator at the end.
During the California fires of 2020 we were overworked, doing 12-16 hour days for 7-10 days in a row and were given a pizza party and food for our help. Management was unorganized, spread out and did not communicate but presented to the public like they had their shit together. It was so chaotic and disorganized but whatever we pulled through and did our job to help.
After the fires we went back to the regular chaos or work but more short staff and no annual raise. As the year went on the workload got heavier but still no sign of hiring people or a raise. Later we come to find out they added another person on the administration team while the rest of the department were down 1-4 people. We were burnt, tired and just downright exhausted. But again we pushed through to help the animals.
Working in a shelter is extremely hard and takes a lot out of you emotionally and physically. There were a lot of stuff I didn't agree with but I would try to push in one direction for the animal. I would get a lot of pushback though. Now management doesn't like it when a person has a voice, and when they do they are usually “targeted.” Even if multiple people complained about one person for harassment nothing would happen to them but if you were a target every move you make would be put under a microscope.
If you went on leave for any reason (health, maternity, etc) HR would blow up your phone and email asking when you would come back. They tried to have a coworker use her PTO instead of her maternity leave for whatever reason. Most people that go on leave for whatever reason usually never come back.
I got injured at work and had to go on workers comp. My job got harder to keep up with but if I couldn't do my current job I would get demoted, which I couldn't afford, so I pushed my body all for the sake of the animals. With my body struggling to keep up so was my mentality. From this job I was diagnosed with PTSD for multiple other reasons I haven even started and my chronic pain got worse.
I've had chronic headaches since I was young but they were tolerable. The longer I stayed there the worse they got. It got to the point that I would have daily migraines in the morning where my aurora migrans would cause me to be nauseous and not be able to see right away when I woke up. It took a lot to be able to stabilize myself to drive and go to work. During this time I was begining to be late to work by 5-10 ish minutes. I told HR and supervisors about my condition and that I am seeing a specialist. There are just a lot of steps to get the the right medication and I have to wait to go through the whole insurance loop. (Some of the suggestions by HR to get to work on time- just wake up earlier so that the sick feeling goes away by the time you need to go to work; maybe you can ask friends and family to help with Botox since I heard that helps [my doctor and I were not at that step in my recovery], and similar things)
I'm also dealing with my work injury, workers comp and a car breaking down. I gave them updates about my condition, treatments and anything I knew about it since I was struggling with it. Since I was late I got written up twice and was being told I'd be demoted if it happens again. I was on a 90 day probation where I can't call out of work without a doctor's note and I couldn't use PTO. So here is the thing, I had the same commute as some other coworkers and I still would get to work before most of them, but none of them got in trouble for being late. I had a friend that was literally 30 minutes late daily but wouldn't get in trouble. So a lot of hypocrisy.
I was told I was using my pain as an excuse and my car breaking down was an excuse. Or anything I did was just an excuse. This also came right after I was more openly talking about wages and unfair treatment with coworkers. I also called out the CEO for honestly being rude about me wanting to volunteer in the DEI committee because “I wasn't a good fit right now.” (Works for an email I have). So the DEI they had was mainly white Americans and although they tried at times they still didn't have a lot of diversity. Being Latina and part of the LGBTQ+ community I though I could bring some fresh ideas. I'm vocal about fair right and figured the committee was the right place to voice that.
At first I asked what he meant by that and I would be given different answers. Then I was talked to by HR and told that it wouldn't look good in the committee to have someone who is late all the time. 3 people in that committee were late all the time. One of my coworkers that was very active in the committee actually ended up leaving because of this happening. That's when I started to really be targetted. I was a problem for them since I knew a lot of legal rights (know your rights as an employee) and HR and supervisors didn't like that I was talking with my coworkers about it. This all on top of having to deal with a emotionally taxing and physically exhausting job. I also had some personal problems going on, which added to the stress but the workplace kept me on edge.
I was being told I am not doing enough or I'm missing something or etc. Many people in the shelter (coworkers/volunteers/public) always saw me running around and doing a lot all at once, even with the injury. A lot of coworkers told me I was being taken advantage of and I was aware of that but I really went to the limit for the animals. But I was running out of myself to give. I was crying everyday. I was in pain and I was just wasting away. I took a step back and went on stress leave. It was so bad to the point that if I started driving towards the shelter I would get so anxious I would start crying. The longer I was out the more I realized that I couldn't do this to myself anymore. I stayed on leave while I figured out my work injury (which is a year old at this point) and realized I had to leave the organization. Close to when I was suppose to come back I put in my resignation. I was supposed to go in for one more week but HR decided they wanted me to just get my last paycheck and they would pay me out. I adored some of my coworkers but some people in power (especially HR) were just horrible people. HR would tell some of her favorite people your personal thing and you would know because you'd hear it down the chain. She treated workers like they were children and overall just a nasty person.
No one talked to their supervisors or HR about problems because 1- nothing would change, 2-you might get in trouble, 3-then all of them would know your business. I understand that they are needed in the community but they really need to change a lot within the company and treat their workers better. My pain was treated like a inconvenient excuse I was using and I'm not the only one this has happened to. This is just some of the things I can remember and not even going into how protocols are for the animals.
I always envisioned myself as helping animals but this took so much out of me I've had to step away from the animal world for a bit. I plan on volunteering at different organizations when I'm ready.
I also found out at the same time I resigned a couple of other people resigned coincidentally at the same time. Mostly the POC that worked there. They are still struggling at hiring more workers because the pay isn't great, the workload is heavy and management is shit. The coworkers that still work there let me know that's it's a mess but a lot of them stopped going above and beyond. They are doing what they can and I hope the best for that place, I really do. I want them to thrive and help the community but know the reality of how it is there. I just really needed to get these thoughts out in an area that I could just vent. I've been in therapy, both for my mental and physical, and my migraine have reduced.
I still have a lot of things to do but I know my worth and have been in a lot of toxic jobs through the years. I'm just to tired and just want a livibale wage and a calm lifestyle. For now I vent to let it go and move on though. Moving towards positivity, self-care, self worth and calm lifestyle.